# time - pydoc - phpman > **TLDR:** Measure how long a command took to run. > - Run the `command` and print the time measurements to `stdout`: `time {{command}}` - Create a very simple stopwatch (only works in Bash): `time read` *Source: tldr-pages* --- Help on built-in module time: ## NAME time - This module provides various functions to manipulate time values. ## DESCRIPTION There are two standard representations of time. One is the number of seconds since the Epoch, in UTC (a.k.a. GMT). It may be an integer or a floating point number (to represent fractions of seconds). The Epoch is system-defined; on Unix, it is generally January 1st, 1970. The actual value can be retrieved by calling [gmtime(0)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gmtime/0/markdown). The other representation is a tuple of 9 integers giving local time. The tuple items are: year (including century, e.g. 1998) month (1-12) day (1-31) hours (0-23) minutes (0-59) seconds (0-59) weekday (0-6, Monday is 0) Julian day (day in the year, 1-366) DST (Daylight Savings Time) flag (-1, 0 or 1) If the DST flag is 0, the time is given in the regular time zone; if it is 1, the time is given in the DST time zone; if it is -1, mktime() should guess based on the date and time. ## CLASSES builtins.tuple(builtins.object) struct_time ### class struct_time | struct_time(iterable=(), /) | | The time value as returned by gmtime(), localtime(), and strptime(), and | accepted by asctime(), mktime() and strftime(). May be considered as a | sequence of 9 integers. | | Note that several fields' values are not the same as those defined by | the C language standard for struct tm. For example, the value of the | field tm_year is the actual year, not year - 1900. See individual | fields' descriptions for details. | | Method resolution order: | struct_time | builtins.tuple | builtins.object | | Methods defined here: | | __reduce__(...) | Helper for pickle. | | __repr__(self, /) | Return repr(self). | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Static methods defined here: | | __new__(*args, **kwargs) from builtins.type | Create and return a new object. See help(type) for accurate signature. | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Data descriptors defined here: | | tm_gmtoff | offset from UTC in seconds | | tm_hour | hours, range [0, 23] | | tm_isdst | 1 if summer time is in effect, 0 if not, and -1 if unknown | | tm_mday | day of month, range [1, 31] | | tm_min | minutes, range [0, 59] | | tm_mon | month of year, range [1, 12] | | tm_sec | seconds, range [0, 61]) | | tm_wday | day of week, range [0, 6], Monday is 0 | | tm_yday | day of year, range [1, 366] | | tm_year | year, for example, 1993 | | tm_zone | abbreviation of timezone name | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Data and other attributes defined here: | | __match_args__ = ('tm_year', 'tm_mon', 'tm_mday', 'tm_hour', 'tm_min',... | | n_fields = 11 | | n_sequence_fields = 9 | | n_unnamed_fields = 0 | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Methods inherited from builtins.tuple: | | __add__(self, value, /) | Return self+value. | | __contains__(self, key, /) | Return key in self. | | __eq__(self, value, /) | Return self==value. | | __ge__(self, value, /) | Return self>=value. | | __getattribute__(self, name, /) | Return getattr(self, name). | | __getitem__(self, key, /) | Return self[key]. | | __getnewargs__(self, /) | | __gt__(self, value, /) | Return self>value. | | __hash__(self, /) | Return hash(self). | | __iter__(self, /) | Implement iter(self). | | __le__(self, value, /) | Return self<=value. | | __len__(self, /) | Return len(self). | | __lt__(self, value, /) | Return self string Convert a time tuple to a string, e.g. 'Sat Jun 06 16:26:11 1998'. When the time tuple is not present, current time as returned by localtime() is used. ### clock_getres clock_getres(clk_id) -> floating point number Return the resolution (precision) of the specified clock clk_id. ### clock_gettime clock_gettime(clk_id) -> float Return the time of the specified clock clk_id. ### clock_gettime_ns clock_gettime_ns(clk_id) -> int Return the time of the specified clock clk_id as nanoseconds. ### clock_settime clock_settime(clk_id, time) Set the time of the specified clock clk_id. ### clock_settime_ns clock_settime_ns(clk_id, time) Set the time of the specified clock clk_id with nanoseconds. ### ctime ctime(seconds) -> string Convert a time in seconds since the Epoch to a string in local time. This is equivalent to asctime(localtime(seconds)). When the time tuple is not present, current time as returned by localtime() is used. ### get_clock_info get_clock_info(name: str) -> dict Get information of the specified clock. ### gmtime gmtime([seconds]) -> (tm_year, tm_mon, tm_mday, tm_hour, tm_min, tm_sec, tm_wday, tm_yday, tm_isdst) Convert seconds since the Epoch to a time tuple expressing UTC (a.k.a. GMT). When 'seconds' is not passed in, convert the current time instead. If the platform supports the tm_gmtoff and tm_zone, they are available as attributes only. ### localtime localtime([seconds]) -> (tm_year,tm_mon,tm_mday,tm_hour,tm_min, tm_sec,tm_wday,tm_yday,tm_isdst) Convert seconds since the Epoch to a time tuple expressing local time. When 'seconds' is not passed in, convert the current time instead. ### mktime mktime(tuple) -> floating point number Convert a time tuple in local time to seconds since the Epoch. Note that mktime([gmtime(0)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gmtime/0/markdown)) will not generally return zero for most time zones; instead the returned value will either be equal to that of the timezone or altzone attributes on the time module. ### monotonic monotonic() -> float Monotonic clock, cannot go backward. ### monotonic_ns monotonic_ns() -> int Monotonic clock, cannot go backward, as nanoseconds. ### perf_counter perf_counter() -> float Performance counter for benchmarking. ### perf_counter_ns perf_counter_ns() -> int Performance counter for benchmarking as nanoseconds. ### process_time process_time() -> float Process time for profiling: sum of the kernel and user-space CPU time. ### process_time_ns process_time() -> int Process time for profiling as nanoseconds: sum of the kernel and user-space CPU time. ### pthread_getcpuclockid pthread_getcpuclockid(thread_id) -> int Return the clk_id of a thread's CPU time clock. ### sleep sleep(seconds) Delay execution for a given number of seconds. The argument may be a floating point number for subsecond precision. ### strftime strftime(format[, tuple]) -> string Convert a time tuple to a string according to a format specification. See the library reference manual for formatting codes. When the time tuple is not present, current time as returned by localtime() is used. Commonly used format codes: %Y Year with century as a decimal number. %m Month as a decimal number [01,12]. %d Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31]. %H Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23]. %M Minute as a decimal number [00,59]. %S Second as a decimal number [00,61]. %z Time zone offset from UTC. %a Locale's abbreviated weekday name. %A Locale's full weekday name. %b Locale's abbreviated month name. %B Locale's full month name. %c Locale's appropriate date and time representation. %I Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12]. %p Locale's equivalent of either AM or PM. Other codes may be available on your platform. See documentation for the C library strftime function. ### strptime strptime(string, format) -> struct_time Parse a string to a time tuple according to a format specification. See the library reference manual for formatting codes (same as strftime()). Commonly used format codes: %Y Year with century as a decimal number. %m Month as a decimal number [01,12]. %d Day of the month as a decimal number [01,31]. %H Hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23]. %M Minute as a decimal number [00,59]. %S Second as a decimal number [00,61]. %z Time zone offset from UTC. %a Locale's abbreviated weekday name. %A Locale's full weekday name. %b Locale's abbreviated month name. %B Locale's full month name. %c Locale's appropriate date and time representation. %I Hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12]. %p Locale's equivalent of either AM or PM. Other codes may be available on your platform. See documentation for the C library strftime function. ### thread_time thread_time() -> float Thread time for profiling: sum of the kernel and user-space CPU time. ### thread_time_ns thread_time() -> int Thread time for profiling as nanoseconds: sum of the kernel and user-space CPU time. ### time time() -> floating point number Return the current time in seconds since the Epoch. Fractions of a second may be present if the system clock provides them. ### time_ns time_ns() -> int Return the current time in nanoseconds since the Epoch. ### tzset tzset() Initialize, or reinitialize, the local timezone to the value stored in os.environ['TZ']. The TZ environment variable should be specified in standard Unix timezone format as documented in the tzset man page (eg. 'US/Eastern', 'Europe/Amsterdam'). Unknown timezones will silently fall back to UTC. If the TZ environment variable is not set, the local timezone is set to the systems best guess of wallclock time. Changing the TZ environment variable without calling tzset *may* change the local timezone used by methods such as localtime, but this behaviour should not be relied on. ## DATA CLOCK_BOOTTIME = 7 CLOCK_MONOTONIC = 1 CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW = 4 CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID = 2 CLOCK_REALTIME = 0 CLOCK_TAI = 11 CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID = 3 altzone = 25200 daylight = 1 timezone = 28800 tzname = ('PST', 'PDT') ## FILE (built-in)